Leaderless output consensus of multi-agent systems with distinct relative degrees under switching directed topologies

摘要

In the existing literatures, almost all the consensus protocols are designed for multi-agent systems with identical orders. In practice, the multi-agent systems are likely to be composed of agents with distinct orders. This study investigates the leaderless output consensus problem for heterogeneous non-linear multi-agent systems with distinct relative degrees under switching directed topologies for the first time. To solve this problem, the considered systems are transformed into the high-order integral multi-agent systems with different orders by feedback linearisation. Under uniformly jointly quasi-strongly connected topologies, two novel protocols are first proposed to solve the consensus and sinusoidal synchronisation problems, respectively, including the static feedback protocol and the dynamic feedback protocol based on dual system of each agent. Then, the relationship between high-order integral systems with different orders and the corresponding first-order integral systems is revealed. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed protocols is illustrated by two simulation examples.